Monday, November 28, 2016

The Dreadful Wilderness is a terrible and dangerous place. Even the most skilled ranger never lets her guard down. Sorcerers are all over the place doing who-knows-what, freakish creatures wander the land tearing human travelers various new holes, and to top it all off there are savages. Once human (or arguably still human ... sort of) these freaks are always more than slightly dangerous.

A battle, once started, is always to the death. Savages never retreat and never surrender.

Parley is an option, but each savage tribe has something different they want or respect.

Savages aren't mindless killing machines, but they aren't the most intelligent of foes.

Cannibals. All of them. Seriously - they want to eat you, it is just a matter of if they have an opportunity.

What Do They Look Like?
Each tribe has a particular mode of dress.

Ragged animal hides

Looted Imperial armor with crested helms

Fancy nobility clothing - they see no difference between a doublet and a gown

Loin cloth and open vest

Shiny purple trousers and natty hats

Military uniforms, hair style determines rank

Pinstriped white shirt and pants, two-tone face paint

Kilts and Woad and a lot of spiked hair

Three-piece suits ... made of human skin

Nude - dongs swinging and heavily pierced

Flak vests and desert camouflage clothes

Space suits, only the elite have mirrored helmets

What are they Wielding?
Weapons tend to be similar among a tribe, but there are various.

Spiked baseball bats

Rusty two-handed swords

Cobbled together pole arms, mostly pikes and halberds

Spear and shield, javelins in a pack on their back

Big-ass hunting knife and a 9mm pistols

Weaponized hedge clippers

Bolo, nets, and pointy sticks

Bow and arrow; leaders have crossbows

Flame throwers

R-89 Light Pulse Rifle with E-phase modulators

What are they Up To?
Savages aren't just wandering around looking for things to kill.

Looking for another tribe of Savages to (1-3) fight or (4-6) trade with

Under orders from some Sorcerer

Searching for lost tribe members (50% children have been abducted)

Hauling some huge machine somewhere

Under the influence of weird mushrooms - they are oddly friendly

Playing a sport of some kind, 50% with another tribe, 50% it is to the death

Returning from a conquest loaded down with loot

Scouting, 25% they were trying to spy on the party

Looking to kill the party, eat them, and loot their stuff

Looking to torture the party, then kill them, eat them, and loot their stuff

Friday, November 25, 2016

Quick NPC Tables
Sometimes one needs an NPC - and fast! Rolling stats and creating backgrounds or even dealing with actual rules can suck. Here are 3 tables. Any time you use a result, cross it off and replace it with something more interesting.

Exploring a previously ignored chamber, the party found many useful treasures ... then shit went south

Opening a cursed lock Ziggy went blind!

Opening a similar cursed lock, Feldmutz became SO STUPID (his final INT dropped to -7) that his body forgot how to breath or even beat his heart! His corpse was looted.

Jorge ignored several warning that the crown he carried was evil, and moments later castrated himself to gain Insight from Beyond the Veil from a Necromancer Soul that inhabited the crown.

The party managed to get some sort of ancient book (in a trunk in a pack worn by a dead monkey) and a scroll of numerous arcane spells (that was in a mineral deposit on display on a pedestal). But was it worth it? The magic looked particularly nasty.

Enter Fredicus - a stoner from LA with a strange living crossbow growing from his arm.

The party moved on and discovered that the Deshi Nest had been destroyed by the Journe, futuristic ant-men. Shit. The Journe had been previously encountered and are bad news.

The party conitnued on to another known area - the Baths of the Oracle! Healing and drinking from magic pools recovered some hit points and cured Ziggy's blindness.

The party knew the Bath held some sort of power if they could just figure out the ritual, but they couldn't quite get it sorted out. They decided that getting out the shaft above the baths (some 30' above the floor) was their primary goal.

Then, through a combination of technology and magic, the party managed to get up the 300' shaft above the baths! It was pretty sweet.

The party encountered some sort of short large-featured humanoids that were clearly guarding the tower the party had managed to get themselves into.

"Disguised" in women's robes similar to those found in the Palace of the Oracle and with some communication magic, the party convinced the humanoids (they started calling them gnomes at some point) that they were on a mission from the Oracle and needed to "get outside"

As the spell wore off, the gnomes led the party to ...

... wait for it ...

OUTSIDE!

Reeling from the sunlight caressing their faces and the cool breeze filling their lungs, we ended the session. It was bloody and violent but, as usual, not super combat-heavy. More importantly, the party is outside and has a general direction toward somewhere called "Haven". They've been hearing about this place. A new phase of the adventure was about to begin. Praise Narkul! Roll credits and play closing theme music.

GM NotesWithout fail, the more a GM plans, the less a group of players given free will will follow along. I was certain they were going to follow up on a lead from last session to find the Vault of Serpents which lead to "a way out", but the buggers got clever and used one of the "teaser" exits and managed to overcome the guardians. Awesome! Now I need to get the Perilous Journey rules meshed up with our playing style and work on the Overworld a bit more. But I'm ready! The Dreadful Wilderness is indeed dreadful, and will open up so many opportunities for exploring the setting outside of Dungeon Titanicus. And who knows what they might find along the way to Haven ... if such a place even exists. ooooh! It was like the last episode of a season - and I can't wait for the next chapter!

Wednesday, November 9, 2016

The Precursors
Squamous things, lizard-like humanoids known for building a great empire, letting it collapse, then managing to linger on the edges of their fallen empire as scavengers of culture and light. In their golden age they were an all powerful creator race, but near the end they were tourists in the remains of a world they could neither understand or fully interact with. They were cruel things: enslavers and takers, cold-blooded and without love in their hearts.

Things
1. The Iron Key, never rusted or corroded, may be a religious symbol of sorts
2. Containment Pods, stone and ornate metal, for sleeping or cloning or rejuvenation?
3. Rod of Obek, lingering magic often present, a status symbol of some sort
4. Black Blade, ornate black stone sword-like weapons, two handed for humans
5. Faded Frieze, showing domination and power, decoration or propaganda
6. Stone Armor, articulated joints of bronze, not suitable for human use

Magics
1. The hundred teeth that snap and rend
2. Scales thick as grell and sturdy as iron
3. Quiet the chattering mind and silence the willful soul
4. Let the earth weep freely and pool his tears
5. Call upon the Shadows to show hidden knowledge
6. Wither the blood and crack the bone

Rumors
1. They created the dwarves as slaves because humans were too unruly
2. Their sorcerers were tremendous but brought the Darkness from beyond the Void
3. Some of them still wander in the Underworld and don't know they are extinct.
5. The savage descendants can be spied in the Picklin Marsh, wearing ancient gold and silver
6. The precursors themselves were once servants of the Dragons from the Far Realm

Friday, November 4, 2016

I haven't had much to post about recently, which is a bummer. Work has screwed up my online game sessions and the tabletop game has been progressing. The memory recovery and gaining class as a level-up has been pretty successful, but I haven't been super-inspired recently.

The one thing I did do, however, was tweak out my random dungeon generator. I've been spending ages on this ting, bringing in random tables from other places, cramming ideas together, tweaking values and percentages, and making it fit the place it is building - Dungeon Titanicus, the basis of the Dawn of Eradu campaign.

The generate creates a series of random rooms with random stuff and random monsters based on the specific dungeon level. Loot is based loosely on the level as well. These are not end-all be-all descriptions, but more along the lines of inspirational things. The level already has a basic outline and concept - for example the Vault of Serpents is romaneque in architecture, crumbling, and set at a tilt; it is populated by the Cult of the Serpent and numerous snake-like things with the occasional faction elements from neighboring levels and some things from the region of the dungeon it is in. These inspirational descriptions are applied to an already numbered dungeon map.

An example of a randomly generated room (not from the final version for those who may be sneaking a peek):

Description: Vase with violets and red tart with a sign: "Eat me". The end of a huge telescope juts through what appears to be a liquid mirror and it shows a far-off world where humans are playing chess.

Description: The majority of the floor is an illusion - the illusion part of the floor has no dirt or grime (easily observed by anyone looking). A metal ladder, the bottom half dissolved, is on the safe part of the floor.The floor drops 30' (1d12 damage) into 1' deep puddle of slightly causing Ragged Medusae drool (she has been asleep and dreaming here for ages). Splashdown irritates a bunch of snakes swimming in the drool and likely awakens the Ragged Meduase.

Stuff: Ragged Medusae, asleep but easily awoken; irritable as she was having a nice dream

<add Ragged Meduae stat block>

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If the description doesn't work or I don't like it, I ignore it. If I want to plop something specific down instead, I do. But having this jumble of often only semi-sensible ideas can get the creative juices flowing. I love these tables and happily loot them from everywhere - the 1e DMG, D&D with Porn Stars, Elfmaids and Octopi, all of it!